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Furlong   /fˈərlˌɔŋ/   Listen
Furlong

noun
1.
A unit of length equal to 220 yards.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Furlong" Quotes from Famous Books



... eyes, and one flame would burn up his life as though it were dry tinder, and the other would wrap round his soul like a scarlet shawl, and she would take it and live with it in a cavern underground for a year and a day. And on that last day she would let it go, as a hare is let go a furlong beyond a greyhound. Then it would fly like a windy shadow from glade to glade, or from dune to dune, in the vain hope to reach a wayside Calvary: but ever in vain. Sometimes the Holy Tree would almost be reached; then, with a gliding swiftness, ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman

... as yet only in remainder, he was even more jealous about them than if he held them already in possession. What right had this man to cut down trees, to fell and appropriate timber? Even in the garden which he rented he could not rightfully touch a stick or stock. But to come out here, a good furlong from his renting, and begin hacking and hewing, quite as if the land were his—it seemed almost too brazen-faced for belief! It must be stopped at once—such outrageous trespass stopped, and punished sternly. He would stride down the hill with a summary veto—but, alas, if he ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... Martin took his bow and three arrows, and stole cautiously into the wood: it was scarce a furlong distant. The horns were heard faintly in the distance, and all the game was afoot. "Come," thought Martin, "I shall soon fill the pot, and no one be the wiser." He took his stand behind a thick oak that commanded a view of an open glade, and strung his bow, a truly formidable ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... my Dream that he made haste and went forward, that if possible he might get Lodging there. Now before he had gone far, he entered into a very narrow passage, which was about a furlong off of the Porter's lodge; and looking very narrowly before him as he went, he espied two Lions in the way. Now, thought he, I see the dangers that Mistrust and Timorus were driven back by. (The Lions were chained, but he saw not the chains.) Then he was afraid, and thought also ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan

... foot, and arranged her habit with painstaking care, considering the hurry they were in. Dick was in the saddle, and gone, before Keith had finished, and Keith was not a slow young man, as a rule. They ran the two miles without a break, except twice, where there were gates to close. Dick, speeding a furlong before, had obligingly left them open; and a stockman is hard pressed indeed—or very drunk—when he fails to close his gates behind him. It is an unwritten law which ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower

... unable to cross, but I walked up the Tay a short distance, and found a fisherman, who agreed to take me over in his frail craft. Hardly had we started when another boat put out from shore in pursuit of us. We made all sail, but our pursuers overtook us when we were within half a furlong of the south bank, and as there were four men in the other boat, all armed with fusils, I peaceably stepped into their craft and handed my sword to ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major

... dress—was apparently picking her way through the boulders. As Bruce moved forward, a big rock shut her off from his view and from the view of the hamlet and of the maneuvering infantry company a furlong away. ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune

... tasting, touching. 'Tis not impossible to hear a whisper a furlongs distance, it having been already done; and perhaps the nature of the thing would not make it more impossible, though that furlong should be ten times multiply'd. And though some famous Authors have affirm'd it impossible to hear through the thinnest plate of Muscovy-glass; yet I know a way, by which 'tis easie enough to hear one speak through a wall a yard thick. ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... all that you had on Was what became you best; And we were in that seldom mood When soul with soul agrees, Mingling, like flood with equal flood, In agitated ease. Far round, each blade of harvest bare Its little load of bread; Each furlong of that journey fair With separate sweetness sped. The calm of use was coming o'er The wonder of our wealth, And now, maybe, 'twas not much more Than Eden's common health. We paced the sunny platform, while The train at Havant changed: What made ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore

... guess," said he, with an air of triumph, "it ain't done with in Nova Scotia, for I have seed these human cattle sales with my own eyes; I was availed of the truth of it up here to old Furlong's last November. I'll tell you the story," said he; and as this story of the Clockmaker's contained some extraordinary statements, which I had never heard of before, I noted it in my journal, for the purpose of ascertaining their truth; and, if founded on fact, ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... bright flag is spread, There's a roar from the grand stand, and Tenny's ahead; At the sound of the voices that shouted, "A go!" He sprang like an arrow shot straight from the bow. I tighten the reins on Prince Charlie's great son; He is off like a rocket, the race is begun. Half-way down the furlong their heads are together, Scarce room 'twixt their noses to wedge in a feather; Past grand stand, and judges, in neck-to-neck strife, Ah, Salvator, boy, 'tis the race of your life! I press my knees closer, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... mine lives in that quarter—got him to make it for me. Overhaul it, sir; you will find the Melton estate has got all your three names within a furlong of the mansion house." ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... the land and fenced it in, And laid his broad foundations down About a furlong out ...
— Moral Emblems • Robert Louis Stevenson

... precipitous; and these latter were clothed in rich, more profuse, and more sombre foliage. The water increased in transparency. The stream took a thousand turns, so that at no moment could its gleaming surface be seen for a greater distance than a furlong. At every instant the vessel seemed imprisoned within an enchanted circle, having insuperable and impenetrable walls of foliage, a roof of ultramarine satin, and no floor—the keel balancing itself ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... freezing weather set in, the rough, broken ice of the Neva was flooded in various places for skating-ponds, and the work of erecting ice-hills commenced. There were speedily a number of the latter in full play, in the various suburbs,—a space of level ground, at least a furlong in length, being necessary. They are supported by subscription, and I had paid ten rubles for permission to use a very fine one on the farther island, when an obliging card of admission came for the gardens of the Taurida Palace, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... a beach of the same name, is within about half a furlong of the Chinese village of Maimatschin, (about the fiftieth parallel of latitude,) being one thousand miles from Pekin, and four thousand from Moscow. Such are the enormous distances through which the eagerness for money-making drives ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various

... expert in nautical terms. He walked in knots, and even ordered a new carpet in fathoms—after the shop-keeper had demonstrated, by means of his little boy's arithmetic book, the difference between that measurement and a furlong. ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... the appearance of a horse-shoe, wound the road in a circuitous manner; just before us, however, and diverging from the road, lay a footpath which seemed, by a gradual descent, to lead across the valley, and to rejoin the road on the other side, at the distance of about a furlong; and into this we struck in order ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... have been given of the speed of the fox-hound. A match that was run over the Beacon Course at Newmarket is the best illustration of his fleetness. The distance is 4 miles 1 furlong and 132 yards. The winning dog performed it in 8 minutes and a few seconds; but of the sixty horses that started with the hounds, only twelve were able to run in with them. Flying Childers had run the same course in 7 minutes ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... surly, but the grudge was not audible in his voice. "I took your fire for a gypsy camp, and was glad enough of it. I've come by the hills from Winterslow since dusk. You were right, though: I was done. I couldn't have dragged another furlong." ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett

... geography of the farm. In imagination I stripped it of stock, crops, buildings, and fences, and saw it as bald as the palm of my hand. I recited the table of long measure: Sixteen and a half feet, one rod, perch, or pole; forty rods, one furlong; eight furlongs, one mile. Eight times 40 is 320; there are 320 rods in a mile, but how much is 16-1/2. times 320? "Polly, how much is 16-1/2 ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter

... the Jews, who should already have been miles into Lake County, still cheerily accompanying us. For about a furlong we followed a good road alone, the hillside through the forest, until suddenly that road widened out and came abruptly to an end. A canyon, woody below, red, rocky, and naked overhead, was here walled across by a dump of rolling ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... or extravagantly—it is not the best way to thank God. But to say only that I was in the desert and that I am among the palm-trees, is to say nothing ... because it is easy to understand how, after walking straight on ... on ... furlong after furlong ... dreary day after dreary day, ... one may come to the end of the sand and within sight of the fountain:—there is nothing miraculous in ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... and breathed us, and handled our weapons some half a furlong from the alien host. They had no earth rampart around them, for that ridge is waterless, and they could not abide there long, but they had pitched sharp pales in front of them and they stood in very good order, as if abiding an onslaught, ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris

... of one of those immense structures which illustrate the Industrial greatness and pecuniary strength of Britain, and illustrate also the meagerness of her Railroad dividends. The Tyne is here a furlong wide or more, running through a narrow valley or wide ravine perhaps 150 feet below the average level of the great plain which encloses it, and hardly more than half a mile wide at the top. Across this river and gorge is thrown a bridge of iron, with abutments and piers of hewn stone, the ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... any topic that was started? The man's face that was so mobile is set now; gone is the light from his fine eyes. He says that A. (our host) is a thoroughly good fellow. Fifty yards further on, he adds that A. is one of the best fellows he has ever met. We tramp another furlong or so, and he says that Mrs. A. is a charming woman. Presently he adds that she is one of the most charming women he has ever known. We pass an inn. He reads vapidly aloud to me: 'The King's Arms. Licensed to sell Ales and Spirits.' I foresee that during the rest of the walk he will read ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... wood left a fair green plain betwixt it and the water, whiles more than a furlong across, whiles much less; and whiles the trees came down close to the water-side. But the place whereas they came from out the wood was of the widest, and there it was a broad bight of greensward of the ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris

... you sit downe, it downe will lye, It with gesture will you wooe, And counterfeit those things you doe; Ore each Hillock it will vault, And nimbly doe the Summer-sault, Upon the hinder Legs 'twill goe, And follow you a furlong so, 120 And if by chance a Tune you roate, 'Twill foote it finely to your note, Seeke the worlde and you may misse To finde out such a thing as this; This my loue I haue for thee So thou'lt leaue ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton

... sailor noticed instantly. Some men, brave to rashness, ready as he to give his life to save her, would have raced madly over the intervening ground, scarce a furlong, and attempted a heroic combat ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... a surprise when Bandmaster drew alongside, but he considered this effort a flash in the pan, anticipating the horse's falling back. At the end of another furlong Bandmaster still stuck to his work, and Colley appeared ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould

... have their "camp ground"; and there, sure enough, if one examines it carefully, will be found traces of some ancient British camp, with its old rampart running round it. But what can be the derivation of such names as Horsecollar Bush Furlong, Smoke Acre Furlong, West Chester Hull, Cracklands, Crane Furlong, Sunday's Hill, Latheram, Stoopstone Furlong, Pig Bush Furlong, ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... the enclosure. I went in among my goats,—even entered the goat-house and played with my kids. I tried the boards of the fence and the timber-stays, to be sure they all were sound. I had paths enough between the rows of corn and potatoes to make a journey of three miles and half a furlong, with two rods more, if I went through the whole of them. So at half-past four on this fatal afternoon I bade my mother good-by, and kissed her. I told her I should not be back for two hours, because I was going to inspect my empire, and I set ...
— The Brick Moon, et. al. • Edward Everett Hale

... thy brother. Despond not. I cannot think that he is lost. We were but a furlong from the shore. My belief is, that seeing the capture of the Queen was certain, and that to him, if taken with her in arms against his country, death was inevitable, he, when he fell, rose again at a safe distance, and ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... scene representing the enchanted palace was removed when Comus's rout was driven off the stage, and a woodland scene redisplayed. This would give additional significance to these lines and to the change of scene after l. 957. 'Furlong' furrow-long: it thus came to mean the length of a field, and is now a ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton

... idle; and although her cuddy-top and gunwale glistened wet with a recent shower, the man who steered her looked over his shoulder at the waning moon, and decided that the dawn would be a fine one. A furlong below the Town Quay he left the tiller and lowered sail: two furlongs above, he dropped anchor: then, having made all ship-shape, he lit a pipe and pulled an enormous watch from his fob. The vessels he had passed since entering the harbour's mouth seemed one and all asleep. But ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... respectable-looking labourer, with a face of the most perfect stolidity, and {288} who possessed a most curiously-shaped skull, broad and flat at the top, and projecting greatly on each side over the ears, deposed: 'I live about a furlong and a half from where the body was found. I have seen the body of the deceased. I had never seen her before her death. On the night of Friday, the 29th of July, I dreamt three successive times that I heard the cry of murder issuing from near the bottom of a close ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various

... his own death was near at hand. In one hand he took his horn, and in the other his good sword Durendal, and made his way the distance of a furlong or so till he came to a plain, and in the midst of the plain a little hill. On the top of the hill in the shade of two fair trees were four marble steps. There Roland fell in a swoon upon the grass. There a certain Saracen spied him. The fellow had feigned death, and had laid himself ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various

... for him—that he had estates and an agent in Jamaica, and he turned into the big inn at the junction of the London road to write a letter to his agent bidding him house me and employ me as an improver. For fear of compromising him we waited in the shadow of trees a furlong or two down the road. He came at a trot, gave me the letter, drew me aside, and began upbraiding himself again. The ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... so plainly true that it seems hardly worth while to say it. It certainly makes no difference whether the land be a square furlong or a continent. ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams

... very polite disposition, I gave the man the sele of the day, asking him, at the same time, why he beat the donkey; whereupon the fellow, eyeing me askance, told me to mind my own business, with the addition of something which I need not repeat. I had not proceeded a furlong before I saw seated on the dust by the wayside, close by a heap of stones, and with several flints before him, a respectable-looking old man, with a straw hat and a white smock, who was ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... to my thoughts, at that time, was to get up into a thick busby tree, like a fir, but thorny, which grew near me, and where I resolved to sit all night, and consider the next day what death I should die, for as yet I saw no prospect of life. I walked about a furlong from the shore, to see if I could find any fresh water to drink, which I did to my great joy; and having drunk, and put a little tobacco in my mouth to prevent hunger, I went to the tree, and getting up into it, endeavored ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... number of rifles, which he put, with ammunition, into the hands of some of the more stalwart negroes. These he sent to their cabins, which lay at a distance of about a furlong and a half on various sides of the house. The men had orders to fire on any advancing enemy, and then to fall back at once on the main building, which was now barricaded and fortified. One lad was told to lurk in a thicket below ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang



Words linked to "Furlong" :   linear measure, pole, stat mi, rod, mile, Gunter's chain, mi, linear unit, statute mile, perch, land mile, international mile



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